Health & Beauty

Recently, the National Development and Reform Commission, the National Health Commission, the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine and the National Bureau of Disease Control and Prevention jointly formulated the "14th Five-Year Plan" High-quality and High-Efficiency Medical and Health Service System Implementation Plan (hereinafter referred to as the "Plan"). The "Plan" proposes to equip medical facilities with medical equipment such as ventilators, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), mobile CT, and infectious disease isolation and transfer devices. Combined with the "14th Five-Year Plan and 2035 Vision Goals Outline" (hereinafter referred to as the "Outline") issued by the state before, the state will concentrate its superior resources to enhance the core competitiveness of high-end medical equipment, and make breakthroughs in endoscopic surgical robots and extracorporeal membrane lungs. Core technologies such as oxygenator.

The issuance of medical construction tasks in these countries has added momentum to the medical device industry, especially bringing policy benefits and market opportunities for high-end and large-scale medical devices entering the clinic, and also helping to accelerate the entry of such imported device products into the Chinese market.

High-end medical equipment such as ventilators, ECMO, mobile CT and other high-end medical equipment have favorable policies

The "Plan" requires the construction of a national base for the prevention and treatment of major infectious diseases. Strengthen the construction of infectious disease anatomy rooms, clinical teaching rooms, emergency material storage space and other facilities, equipped with ventilators, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), mobile CT, infectious disease isolation transfer devices and other medical equipment, and can also be equipped with conditions Mobile biosafety three-level laboratory, mobile nucleic acid testing laboratory. In addition, for the sea (water), land, aviation, snow and other scene needs, combined with the actual configuration of mobile operating room, mobile CT, etc.

The "Plan" also proposes to build a national TCM epidemic prevention and control base, including the construction of a convertible infectious disease area, a convertible ICU, a biosafety level two or above laboratory, medical waste disposal facilities, etc., equipped with ventilators, extracorporeal membrane lungs, etc. Oxygenation (ECMO), mobile CT, cardiopulmonary resuscitation and other critically ill emergency rescue equipment, complete the necessary negative pressure ambulance, mobile Chinese pharmacy and other mobile equipment configuration.

In addition, the "Outline" previously issued by the country also pointed out that it is necessary to concentrate superior resources on the prevention and control of emerging infectious diseases and biosafety risks, medicine and medical equipment, key components and parts and basic materials, and oil and gas exploration and development. Key core technology. Break through core technologies such as endoscopic surgical robots and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machines, and develop high-end imaging, radiotherapy and other large-scale medical equipment and key components. Develop implanted products such as brain pacemakers and fully degradable vascular stents to promote the upgrading of rehabilitation aids.

According to the above-mentioned "Plan" and "Outline", the demand for high-end medical equipment products such as ventilators, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), mobile CT, and endoscopic surgical robots will continue to increase in the future and usher in market attention.

Some high-end medical equipment and core accessories mainly rely on imports

Some of the medical devices mentioned in the above-mentioned "Plan" and "Outline" are currently mainly dependent on imports in the domestic market, and even some of the core accessories of these devices need to be obtained through imports.

Taking ventilators as an example, customs data shows that in 2019, my country imported a total of 15,899 ventilators with a unit price of more than 10,000 yuan. Affected by the epidemic in 2020, the number of imported ventilators has increased significantly. In the first quarter of 2020, the number of imported ventilators with a unit price of more than 10,000 yuan will almost be the same as that of the entire year of 2019.

After long-term growth and R&D, leading domestic companies such as Mindray Medical, Yi'an Medical, and Yuyue Medical have gradually broken the complete monopoly of foreign-funded enterprises in the domestic ventilator market, but they have only regained the low-end market, and high-end products are still Mainly imported from abroad. In the invasive ventilator market, brands such as Medtronic, Dräger and Siemens have a high degree of recognition in China, accounting for more than 80% of the market share. Public data shows that among the top ten companies in China in terms of ventilator sales in 2019, only three domestic brands are Mindray Medical, Shenzhen Keman, and Beijing Yi'an.

2019 China Ventilator Sales Volume Ranking (Source: China Business Industry Research Institute)

In fact, a ventilator is equivalent to a sophisticated gas delivery industrial control system with thousands of parts. Most of them have been made domestically, but there is still a significant gap between my country and the international level in terms of core components. For example, core components such as compressors, chips, sensors, solenoid valves, and oxygen sources still rely heavily on international supplier.

Mobile CT is an important branch in the CT field in recent years. To a certain extent, mobile CT can be regarded as a product of intraoperative CT volume reduction and significantly improved mobility. At present, domestic manufacturers have taken substantial steps in the field of mobile CT, and domestic manufacturers have successively made efforts in this subdivision field. For example, my country’s 16-row small mobile CT equipment with independent intellectual property rights, MCT-I, has already been launched in 2020. Approved in September. However, imported brands of mobile CT equipment such as Philips, Siemens, and GE still account for most of the domestic market.

Compared with imported ventilators and mobile CT equipment, a small part of imported equipment has been replaced in China, while the extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machine (ECMO) is completely dependent on imports in China. There are only imported brands of ECMO extracorporeal membrane oxygenation system, and no domestic manufacturer currently produces ECMO. Globally, this equipment is mainly supplied by companies such as Medtronic and Maiveco. According to the calculations of West China Securities, if the domestic top three hospitals are equipped with ECMO, the potential market is about 1.8 billion yuan. Among them, the purchase amount of ECMO equipment is 476 million yuan, and the annual consumable package is about 1.325 billion yuan.

Imported medical devices still have irreplaceable advantages

In general, some domestic medical devices and parts have not yet broken through the corresponding technical barriers, resulting in the failure to realize the corresponding detection functions, and the accuracy and precision of related indicators, manual automation operation and durability are better than imported instruments. Big gap.

For example, in April this year, Sichuan Province issued the "Provincial 2021-2022 Government Procurement List of Imported Products Demonstration Opinion Announcement (Medical and Health Equipment)", the content of the publicity showed that 23 new provincial government procurement of medical and health laboratory equipment and equipment , And the requirements are imported products. Experts concluded that: the domestic products of these equipment are far from imported, and it is difficult to meet the requirements of medical and health laboratories, so all of them are imported.

Not long ago, the bidding procurement information issued by the China Institute for Food and Drug Control also showed that supercritical chromatographs, high-throughput dynamic steam automatic analyzers, scanning electron microscopes, high-content cell imaging analysis systems, high-resolution mass spectrometers, etc. will be purchased. The total budget for the equipment is 54.27 million yuan, all of which are required to be imported.

It can be seen that imported medical equipment still has the irreplaceable advantage of domestic equipment. However, it should also be noted that with the in-depth implementation of the "Opinions on Deepening the Reform of the Review and Approval System and Encouraging Innovation in Drugs and Medical Devices", the implementation of domestic priority policies has increased support for the development of domestic medical device innovation. In addition, the country's implementation of the centralized procurement policy for high-value consumables will open a green channel for the sales of domestic products from the source of procurement.

Under such circumstances, for imported medical devices, it is necessary to continue to increase investment in research and development, optimize and upgrade products, and strengthen the accumulation of advantages in core technologies such as intelligent design, ventilation, and noise reduction, and dig deep into the technological moat.